Help With Teaching Elementary Math Facts

As these final days are winding down, I find myself thinking more about what I want to change next year.

One thing that I need to do more of with the kids is practice basic skills. I take a couple weeks at the beginning of the school year to review/teach the basic skills of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, but it doesn't seem to have been enough with the clientele I have had this year.

The kids that I teach have fallen behind and fallen through the cracks of the normal system. Many of them are extremely bright, but simply didn't go to school or do their work. However, I have many other students that are significantly behind in basic skills. I did have this problem with my students in Mississippi, but oddly enough, not to the same extent. My impoverished students in Mississippi knew their multiplication tables better than my students at this alternative school.

So my idea has been that I will actually take time each day to review, practice, and drill basic math facts. However, I don't have any training in elementary math techniques. I was thinking of doing a timed test every day - the kind I remember doing in elementary school where you did all the problems you could in a certain amount of time. However, I want to make sure I'm doing this effectively.

I am definitely looking for suggestions on how to go about setting this up and how to reward and encourage students to do well. Should I do flash cards like I remember my teachers doing in elementary school or is there some new research that has other ideas about the best way to reinforce basic facts? Are timed tests a good way to go to practice or is there another new idea in the elementary world for that as well? Would a chart with stickers for students who pass off different facts be effective, i.e. a student perfectly does his 3's multiplication flash cards gets a sticker on the chart?

Any ideas are appreciated - again I am completely green when it comes to teaching elementary math concepts.